Re: Wireless Connectivity

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On Apr 5, 10:03 am, Owen Williams [SBS MVP] <Owen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In article <1175737129.354590.234...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
sblenkh...@xxxxxxxxx says...

Even more so it seems to be awirelessconnectivityissue to an extent
because I do have Offline files for wired stations and they have no
issues with going offline. I even have a single workstation that is
wirelessand it has no issues. It really is an issue that is with two
laptops.

Since the problem is specific to 2 out of 3wirelessdevices while the
other one (the workstation) is not having any problems, I would
concentrate on the laptopwirelessNICs. Firmware, drivers, etc.

I have seen one case where an olderwirelessNIC was flakey with certain
WAPs. If you have access to awirelessNIC PCCard, you can try
disabling the internalwireless(assuming that's what you are using),
installing the PCCard NIC, and seeing if that makes a difference. [I
know it's a pain, but sometimes this sort of trial-and-error is the best
one can do.]


These laptops are both almost brand new. Both using Intel wireless
chipsets. I have updated the drivers on them and upgraded to use the
Intel wireless adapter software versus letting Windows manage the Wifi
but alas no help. Still goes offline constantly.

My laptop is an HP dv1000 with an Intel PRO/Wireless2200BGwireless
adapter. The other laptop is a Fujitsu LifeBook but not sure the
adapter at this point.

IntelwirelessNICs are usually pretty good in my experience.

When we go offline the actualwireless
connection doesn't seem to miss a beat - never goes to the yellow dot
or issues that indicate a true signal problem.

If you do a Repair on the two laptop NICs, after the NIC is re-enabled
does the remainder of the process go quickly (acquire address, etc.)?

There are only two competingwirelesssignals usually and I will
double check their channel, but I believe they are not competing in
the same space - I have NetStumbler so I will double check that.

OK.

We are using WPA-PSK TKIP security on this configuration.

If *all* of your devices (WAP + NICs) support AES encryption, you might
try changing to that. This is because TKIP is a software-only
encryption method (actually an enhanced WEP) while AES depends on
devices having "hardware assist." If everything supports AES, you may
*reduce* the processing load on the WAP and NICs which may improve
reliability. (Bonus: Awirelessnetwork which uses AES is often 10% to
15% faster than one using TKIP.) However, you *cannot* mix TKIP and
AES.

The only problem is that we have some wireless printers... so we are
limited to what the HP wireless jetdirect boxes are capable of and
that is TKIP unfortunately. When I have time I may look at wiring but
some of them are in more remote areas and we only rent this space so
we try to limit the wiring that we do. The funny part is that the
printers work seamlessly, we never have issues!



I agree though that changing to a different solution would just be
masking the true issue but these Offline Files seems to be the only
thing really having any problems... otherwise everything is very much
operational - and my boss is killing me on this... she is tired of
this Offline business!

I appreciate the realities of mad bosses. That said, even if you need
to implement a temporary workaround for the O.F. issue, please keep
investigating thewirelessproblem until it is solved. Otherwise, you
will likely have otherwireless-related problems later.

-- Owen Williams (SBS MVP)

I agree that I don't want to leave any wireless issues, but when the
only thing that doesn't seem to work wirelessly is the offline files
with this configuration it seems to be more of a Windows/Offline Files
issue than anything else. Everything else works perfectly normal. We
use these laptops everywhere and see 0 problems. Offline Files are
the only problems and when I read through history of posts and see
issue after issue it really gets me wondering if this work is worth my
effort... it seems to be a very flawed design really. When it works,
it works great, but now that it doesn't work it is just killing any
productiveness and making people angry!

Cheers,
Sean

.

Relevant Pages

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